[Utah News] Articles on Jazz loss

http://www.sltrib.com/jazz/ci_9103741

Utah Jazz: Listless Utah gets walloped in Game 5

By Ross Siler
The Salt Lake Tribune

HOUSTON - Maybe they underestimated the challenge of closing out the Houston Rockets on their home court. Maybe they were overconfident after already having won two games at Toyota Center in this first-round playoff series.

Maybe they got caught looking ahead to Kobe Bryant, the Los Angeles Lakers and the Western Conference semifinals. Maybe they saw the red in the stands and reverted to the team that went 17-24 on the road in the regular season.

Whatever the reason, the Jazz suffered a lifeless 95-69 loss in Tuesday night's Game 5. They still own a 3-2 series lead but will have to win Friday's Game 6 at EnergySolutions Arena to avoid a return trip here for Game 7.


It was the third fewest points scored by the Jazz, who averaged 106.2 points this season, in their playoff history. The Jazz shot 36.5 percent, committed 18 turnovers, went 13-for-23 from the foul line and fell behind by 17 in the second quarter.

"We knew it was going to be tough," Deron Williams said. "We knew it's not going to be easy to come in here and eliminate them after we just did it last year in their building. We knew they were going to be ready. We didn't match their intensity, match their energy level, and got beat."

Tracy McGrady scored a series-high 29 points on 13-for-26 shooting to lead the Rockets and appeared very much in rhythm as he drilled jumpers and hitspinning bank shots on the way to an 18-point second half.

McGrady said the Rockets reminded themselves what Carlos Boozer said after Game 2, that the Jazz weren't coming back to Houston. "It doesn't even feel like we're down 3-2," he added, "because I think two of the games that we lost, we had it."

For all the talk about McGrady's balky left knee and the painkilling injections he is taking to play, Jazz coach Jerry Sloan jokingly noted, "He must have had surgery. That's probably what happened."

The Jazz are 38-5 at home this season, but two of those losses have come to the Rockets, including Game 3 of this series. "We're in a great situation," McGrady said. "We know we can win in Utah. We've done it before."

The Rockets pulled away at the start of the second quarter and didn't even need McGrady on the floor to do so. Carl Landry, Chuck Hayes, Luther Head and Bobby Jackson combined to outscore the Jazz's bench players 18-0 in the quarter.

They scored the first nine points of the second quarter to take a 27-16 lead.

Sloan replaced Kyle Korver with Ronnie Brewer just 2:28 into the quarter
after Korver took a quick three-pointer and was beaten by Jackson for a layup.

McGrady hit a three-pointer on his first possession after returning and Boozer was called for a technical with 6:34 left.

After his shot was blocked by Head, Boozer swatted his hand in the direction of referee Mark Wunderlich for the technical.

The Rockets led 39-22 after Hayes grabbed the offensive rebound after a Landry miss and flipped in a layup. Not only were they outworked, the Jazz were sloppy as well, with Brewer missing a layup on the fast break.

The Jazz were outscored 25-16 in the quarter - they lost all four quarters in the game - and went into halftime trailing 43-32.

It was the first time Houston had led at halftime in 12 playoff games against the Jazz dating to last year's first-round series.

Williams said the Jazz needed to try to push the ball in Game 6, instead of falling into a half-court game that favored the Rockets. Sloan stressed shot selection and the Jazz's tendency to settle for outside jumpers.

"We've just got to realize what's a good shot and what's a bad shot," said Williams, who had 13 points and six assists, "when to make the extra pass and when to shoot it."

The Jazz closed to 47-40 early in the third quarter before a blocked shot and turnover led to two Luis Scola fast-break layups. Utah got back within 10 points with 4:45 left in the quarter before the Rockets restored order with a 12-0 run.

Rafer Alston started the run with a three-pointer and capped it with another to give Houston a 70-48 lead. Sloan pulled his starters with 3:42 remaining in the fourth and the Rockets owning a 20-point lead.
In reality, the Jazz were out of it almost from the start. They went 7 of 19 in the first quarter with five turnovers and three missed free throws. They mustered just 16 points in both the first and second quarters.
They hadn't scored fewer than 77 points in any game all season before Tuesday.
"It's very disappointing, but it's not the end of the world and not the end of the series," Williams said. "They've still got to come back and beat us at our place."

 

http://www.sltrib.com/jazz/ci_9103742

Utah Jazz: Too little, too late for Boozer

Forward's struggles continue early; by the time he snaps out of it the blowout is on

By Gordon Monson
The Salt Lake Tribune


HOUSTON - With the offensive funk Carlos Boozer has suffered through in the Jazz-Rockets playoff series, Jazz eyes focused on him in Game 5 here on Tuesday night.

Sad eyes for one half, and, after that, it didn't really matter.

All told, Boozer responded with 19 points on 8 of 18 shooting in a 95-69 Jazz loss.

Boozer had said earlier he thought he was playing well, reiterating that he's a great player. But he had struggled from the field, showing erratic efficiency.

And it was worse than just that. Boozer seemed uncomfortable handling the ball, passing the ball, catching the ball, moving without the ball.

Nothing changedearly on in Game 5.

In the first half, when the entire Jazz offense seized up, Boozer was in the middle of the slop. Over the first quarter, he scored just two points, although he also had five boards and two steals.

Boozer, in the second period, slowly improved, but not before committing turnovers and missing shots he normally makes.

At the 6:34 mark of that quarter, Boozer bumbled around with the ball in the low post, and when he lost it, triggering a Rockets' fastbreak, he protested enough to draw a technical, which gave Houston a double-digit lead.

The power forward regained a bit of his touch in the third and fourth quarters, getting 12 points,but, by then, the game was already gone.

Asked about the difficulty the Rockets' defense was presenting him, Boozer said he has to "just try and take what they give you. Be optimistic out there and try to attack when you get a chance."

Boozer continued to contribute in a major way on the boards, getting 10 Tuesday night, after grabbing 16, 7, 13, and 14 in the first four games.
The Rockets, one of the best defensive teams in the Western Conference, have stressed limiting Boozer in the paint, running multiple players at him. But Boozer's troubles have been on him, too.

And they continued for long enough in a bad Jazz defeat, one that got no better straight through to the end, even as Boozer's play did.

 

http://www.sltrib.com/jazz/ci_9103740

Utah Jazz: Team keeps one eye on restful Lakers

By Ross Siler
The Salt Lake Tribune

HOUSTON - As much as they tried to focus on Tuesday's Game 5 against Houston, the Jazz couldn't help knowing the top-seeded Los Angeles Lakers were resting at home in advance of a potential Western Conference semifinals series.

The Lakers completed a four-game sweep of Denver on Monday (averaging 114.8 points a game) and will host Games 1 and 2 of the conference semifinals should the Jazz advance. The Jazz went 1-3 against the Lakers in the regular season.

That included two double-digit losses at Staples Center, one home victory in a game the Jazz played without injured starters Carlos Boozer and Mehmet Okur, and a 106-95 loss on March 20 that snapped the Jazz's 19-game home winning streak.

Matt Harpring said the Lakers could take advantage of the downtime to scout the Jazz in full. "Sweeping is huge for them," Harpring added, "preparation- and rest-wise, but we have to focus on the Rockets."

Kobe Bryant averaged 29.8 points against the Jazz this season and scorched them for 52 points in a Nov. 30, 2006, victory in Los Angeles, scoring 30 points in the third quarter alone.

Ronnie Brewer and Andrei Kirilenko have tuned up for Bryant with their defensive work on Houston's Tracy McGrady in this series. Bryant does have a stronger supporting cast than McGrady, starting with Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom.

The Lakers are 26-5 with Gasol in the lineup since his arrival from Memphis. Gasol did not play in the March 20 game against Utah thanks to a sprained ankle.

Boozer and Deron Williams both said they had not yet reached out to former teammate Derek Fisher, who averaged 8.5 points for the Lakers in the Denver sweep. "I probably need to," Williams said. "He's playing great for them."

With a crowd of reporters and television crews on hand, Jazz rookies Morris Almond and Kyrylo Fesenko sang "Happy Birthday" at the pregame shootaround to guard Jason Hart, who celebrated his 30th Tuesday.

Hart joined Harpring as the only 30-year-olds on the Jazz roster. That Fesenko knew all of the words, meanwhile, caught some of his teammates by surprise.

"He was following Mo's lead pretty good. I was impressed,'' Boozer said. "It ain't going to go platinum, but it was good, though."

"Fes will act like he doesn't know words, but he knows them,'' Williams said. "He's one of those guys, when the cop pulls him over, he doesn't speak English all of a sudden."

 

Utah Jazz: Rockets boosted — Houston hammers Jazz, sends series here

By Tim Buckley
Deseret News
Published: Wednesday, April 30, 2008 12:35 a.m. MDT

HOUSTON — Tracy McGrady's left knee supposedly hurts so bad, he's been taking pain-killing injections.

Jazz coach Jerry Sloan, however, isn't buying it.

Not after McGrady scored a game-high 29 points Tuesday night at the sold-out Toyota Center to lead the Houston Rockets past the Jazz 95-69 in Game 5 of their first-round NBA playoff series.

"He must have had surgery, is probably what happened," Sloan said.

That wasn't actually the case.

But it was McGrady who clearly was holding the knife Tuesday, shooting 13-of-26 from the field and scoring 18 of his points in the second half in what was clearly his most-productive game of the series.

The result of his effective execution:

Houston trimmed Utah's lead in the best-of-seven series to 3-2, forcing an ESPN-televised Game 6 scheduled for 8:30 p.m. Friday at EnergySolutions Arena.

"He definitely hit some tough shots, but that's what he does," Jazz point guard Deron Williams said. "He played great. ... He got to the basket, he was patient, he passed the ball well."

"He is a great player," added Jazz small forward Andrei Kirilenko, who has spent much of the series guarding McGrady. "It's impossible to shut him down (totally). You need to really pay attention to him for 48 minutes, because he can get hot for five minutes and that's enough for the whole game."


McGrady scored 10 in the third quarter, a period in which Houston used a 12-0 run — bookended by a pair of 3-pointers from point Rafter Alston, who finished with 14 — to quickly push a 10-point lead to 22 at 70-48.

The Jazz never got to within closer than 15 in the fourth quarter, prompting them afterward to bemoan opportunity squandered.

"They came out and they pushed us all over the building," said Sloan, whose club produced the third-lowest offensive in the Jazz's postseason history.

"Our offense, they had it stretched out all over the floor," he added after Utah found itself down by 17 late in the second quarter. "Right at the beginning, we started taking outside shots and quick shots, and it played right into their hands."

Jazz All-Star Carlos Boozer, who scored a team-high 19 points but shot just 8-of-18 from the field, suggested the quick-trigger shots were a result of the big deficit.

"It's tough when you get down by as much as we did," he said.

"You feel like you've got to try to come back all in one play, as opposed to doing it possession by possession," Boozer added. "Sometimes you get a little rushed, and want to hit the home run with one shot."

Sloan, though, felt the Jazz's troubles started much earlier than that.

The evidence: Houston, up 43-32 at the break, led at halftime for the first time in 12 playoff games between the Jazz and Rockets this year and last.

"You can't come out and try to force shots," he said. "I think that's one of the biggest things, is we tried to force shots.

"We got out of the offense a couple of times, and took a couple quick shots," Sloan added after being asked about his quick second-quarter substitution of Ronnie Brewer for backup Kyle Korver at shooting guard. "You know, you've got to bury 3-point shots, especially early in the ballgame, if you're gonna make them stay honest."

With the Western Conference's No. 1-seeded Los Angeles Lakers done with their first-round series against Denver and waiting to face the winner of this No. 4- vs. No. 5-seed series, Sloan was quite candid about what it will take for his Jazz to avoid a Game 7 on Sunday back in Houston.

His point guard, who managed just four assists, was the same.

"We have to play harder to be able to beat them," Sloan said. "We certainly have to play a lot of harder, because they got loose balls, they knocked us around, they went after the basketball with their hearts."

"They (the Rockets) definitely have the momentum now, I think, after this game, and hopefully we can swing it back over," Williams added. "That first quarter (Friday) is going to be crucial in this game. I think we've got to try to raise the tempo a little bit up, and push the ball a little bit more early, instead of settling into a halfcourt game with them. That's what they want."

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,695275099,00.html